On Sept. 17, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was submitted to be signed and ratified.1 After four sweaty summer months spent drafting and debating, representatives from states left the Philadelphia Convention with a vision for how the country's government would act.
But there was a problem. There was no vision for how the government was not allowed to act. With fresh memories of the oversteps of the British government, a group known as the Anti-Federalists refused to sign onto the Constitution without assurances protecting their "natural rights," rights that they asserted were given to them by God, and which could not be violated by any government.
These natural rights became the Bill of Rights, which was ratified as the first ten amendments, or additions, to the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights included a wide range of protections.
The First Amendment protects freedom of religion, the freedom of the press, and the right to assemble, in addition to the freedom of speech at issue in the Tinker case.

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